Hitting the Right Way

Over my 40 years of training Wing Chun I have seen many people easily give up because they do not believe their Wing Chun will work during a fight. What they forget is they are still learning and that it takes time. If we do not have enough time to practice Chī Sáu 黐手 or have not practiced with enough people, I would say 500 people or at least 100 people, then your level of skill will not be high enough. We need to practise Chī Sáu regularly, the best would be every day or at least three times a week. If you can do this then after 5 years you can reach a very good level and you will be able to use less energy to overcome somebody who is stronger than you. During training we must focus on the correct principles in order to reach a high level and really try to use less energy. Then it does not matter how big, fast or strong our opponent is. We learn to avoid being hit first but this does not mean we do not hit back. We hit at the right time and we can hit as hard as possible, although during Chī Sáu we do not hit our partner hard. Sometimes during Chī Sáu, we will hit even when we know it will not work, but we do this in order to confuse our opponent, so that they become tense and make a mistake. Then we can hit them because of their mistake and this is the best as they cannot hit back. This is a good tactic to use, rather than trying to hit and not realising it will not work as this give our opponent a chance to use our mistake and hit us back.